


let me look out for you

by gealbhan



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 3+1 Things, Canon Disabled Character, Established Relationship, Hair Braiding, M/M, Post-Canon, Tenderness, lightly implied ishvalan ed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: Ling clears his throat and adopts a more nasal tone, reminiscent of an older man. “Your hair is a gift from your parents, you know.”“Is that so,” says Ed, tone as dry as his hair. He taps a finger against his knee in consideration—subtler than scratching his chin like a brooding villain. “Well, if you think about it in genetic terms, sure. Your biological parents’ genes combine to produce what your hair looks like—”Ling tugs harmlessly on a limp strand of hair. “Once an alchemist, always an alchemist.”Three times Ling styles Ed's hair, and one time Ed styles Ling's.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Ling Yao
Comments: 11
Kudos: 240





	let me look out for you

**Author's Note:**

> this would have been rated g, but ed couldn't stop fucking swearing. also, note about the disabled character tag: in addition to his canon limb loss, ed is also depicted here with an unspecified form of arthritis, and ling is also heavily implied to have some chronic pain.
> 
> title from fiona apple's "daredevil." enjoy!

**i.**

Right now, Ed knows three things.

One: He is in Xing. More specifically, he—a guest summoned by the emperor himself—is in the Imperial Palace of Xing. To expand even further, he is sitting on the edge of the bed of the guest quarters assigned to him.

Two: He does not necessarily want to be here. Had things gone his way, Ed wouldn’t have received the invitation, but Al has always had a devious streak hidden behind that wholesome, angelic, cat-loving facade he totes around like a new suit of armor, and he’d made damn well sure that Ed got the invitation and showed up. Ed’s resistance has wavered the longer he’s beheld the glorious glitter of the palace and Ling’s smile. Still, there are dozens of other things he’d rather be doing tonight than dazzling the Xingese nobility as the emperor’s plus-one to a Lunar New Year festival.

Which brings him to thing number three: Ling is doing his hair.

By this point, Ed has no honest clue what is happening to his hair. The mirror had been taken away some time ago (Ed has lost track of the time), and Ling’s motions are far more complex than the sloppy braids and ponytails Ed is used to.

Ed shifts. “Are all Xingese styles so—” the phrase _fucked up_ almost passes through his lips before, for once, he reconsiders “—complicated?”

Behind him, Ling chortles (a phrase Ed almost lolls his tongue out in disgust at—who _chortles_ in real life? Ling Yao does). “It’s not a Xingese style, per se. I mean, it technically is, and don’t do that,” he adds when Ed twists to flash a suspicious glare over his shoulder, “but it’s a Xingese style meant to discern foreigners.”

“I would think that would be obvious already.” His brown skin is commonplace, but the gold hair and eyes would have made him stick out like a sore thumb in Xing’s isolationist days. Nowadays, they still earn him some odd looks.

“It’s a formality.” Ling clicks his tongue and does something with Ed’s bangs. “Go along with it, won’t you?”

Ed’s eyes narrow. “As long as I don’t have to sit like this for much longer.”

“No promises!”

Ed’s scowl tightens at the ominously cheerful tone. His eyes stay fixed on the wall before him while Ling continues dragging a comb—constructed from an ox’s horn—through the still-loose bits of his hair.

Ling himself is already well-made-up; an ornate pin and ribbon hold his sleek black hair up in a large bun that still looks too small to contain the compressed length of his hair. His robes are bright yellow, a gold that burns into Ed’s eyelids even without facing him. Embroidery of scenes and symbols covers the silk. _They’re ceremonial,_ is the first thing Ling had said, tugging uncomfortably at the high collar and the silver pendant resting below his throat.

The robes had looked nice, if somewhat goofy and over-formal, and Ed had said this through a snort. Ling had gotten the last laugh by forcing him into a set of plainer red robes.

 _Can’t I get black or white or something?_ he’d asked in misery, and Ling had looked at him as though he’d just stabbed his grandmother.

 _To a_ New Year’s _celebration?_ Ling had exchanged an aghast head shake with Lan Fan—another superstition, Ed had guessed. _Nope, you’re stuck with this for the next fifteen days._

So here Ed sits, arms crossed over the silky front of his robes, unable to keep from scratching at the sleeves.

“Stop moving,” Ling tells him with a hand planted across his scalp.

In a feeble act of rebellion, Ed adjusts his legs and reaches down to attempt to rub the pins and needles out of the non-automail one. “Hey, I’m not used to wearing stuff like this,” he defends. “Or sitting so fucking still.”

He can almost hear the eyeroll. “Patience, Your Majesty. The feast isn’t for a while, so we have—” a pause of consideration as Ling leans away to presumably grab something “—three hours’ worth of all the time in the world.”

“We’re going to eat?” Consider Ed’s interest piqued.

“In due time.” Ed’s stomach gives a mournful growl, and Ling snickers. “And then either tonight or tomorrow I’ll hand out—what would you call it in Amestrian?—red envelopes to some kids around town and the palace.”

“Red envelopes?”

“Yep. They’re filled with money and given out around New Year’s. Traditionally, kids don’t get much, but traditions are meant to change, and I have the money to spare anyway,” says Ling with a somehow audible shrug. “I should be getting some from the elders around here too, since I’m still unmarried.” The hint of disdain in his voice is at odds with the casual way he abandons the ox horn come to untangle Ed’s hair with his fingers instead.

Ed hums, resolute stare on the wall. A couple of minutes tick away. His hair falls dry ( _washing it is bad luck,_ Ling and Lan Fan had both told him when he’d arrived) and brittle (its natural texture) against his back. Ed glances at the thin, long strands out of the corners of his eyes.

“I should have cut it, probably.”

Ling clears his throat and adopts a more nasal tone, reminiscent of an older man. “Your hair is a gift from your parents, you know.”

“Is that so,” says Ed, tone as dry as his hair. He taps a finger against his knee in consideration—subtler than scratching his chin like a brooding villain. “Well, if you think about it in genetic terms, sure. Your biological parents’ genes combine to produce what your hair looks like—”

Ling tugs harmlessly on a limp strand of hair. “Once an alchemist, always an alchemist.”

“It’s not my fault the best present my father ever gave me was a genetic propensity for alchemy, and I don’t even have that anymore.”

An uncomfortable beat of silence follows. Ed rearranges his legs again, resting his once again half-asleep leg across his automail knee. It jiggles up and down there.

“And all mine ever gave me was the crown,” says Ling, then, and for a moment Ed hears not the full-grown emperor but the weary fifteen-year-old desperate enough to prove himself that he made a deal with the personification of greed. It passes with Ling’s sigh. “It’s a metaphorical tradition. And true enough from a literal standpoint.”

“It’s a nice thought, I guess.” Compromise burns against Ed’s teeth, but thinking of his hair—darker than his mother’s platinum, lighter than his father’s dusty gold—as another awkward gift through the genetic tree _is_ nice. If only he had fewer parental issues and could appreciate it.

“Well, anyway, your hair is fine as is—or it would be if you brushed it more often.” Ling cuts his fingers through a gnarled cluster. “It’s a pain in the ass to style.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Why would it be mine?” demands Ling, undercutting laughter ruining his attempt at sounding offended. “I’m trying to do you a favor here.”

Ling swaps his hand for the comb again and untangles another knot, hard enough to send teeth-gritting pain to Ed’s scalp. His mouth twitches into a grimace. “Favor, you say?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ling relents and leans back. “Stop glowering at nothing—it’s done now! Finally. I was already done with most of the real styling, I just wanted to make it look less unkempt.” Ling’s presence disappears, and Ed is about to call out when he drops back down, now beside Ed instead of behind him, with a mirror in hand, a gaudy thing studded with jade. “See?”

Ed blinks down. Two thick strands of his straw-gold hair are left down across his chest while the rest is swept back, his bangs also pinned out of the way. A section is tied up in a bun, lower-seated than Ling’s but adorned with a no less ostentatious pin. Flowers are tucked into the thin locks spread across his scalp. To his discontent, it looks nice against the blinding crimson of his berobed shoulders.

“What the fuck,” he says, but apparently it’s quiet and neutral enough that Ling doesn’t take it the way those words are most often meant.

“See? It’s fine. Especially since I haven’t done anyone else’s hair but mine since Lan Fan cut hers.”

On instinct, Ed glances toward the door, outside which Lan Fan is doubtlessly standing vigil, shadow not visible but presence palpable. She had cut her hair short five years ago; quite a broad time frame.

“Yeah, it’s good.” Ed smooths out one of the loose strands. “If you ever give up on this whole emperor thing,” he suggests, flippant but underlying message clear, “you could open a hair salon or something.”

“Ehh, maybe someday. After Mei and all of her adopted kids take my place.” Ling lays a warm hand on his shoulder, and through his peripheral vision, Ed catches the smile reflected in the mirror at the same time he sees it on Ling’s face. “Ready?”

Ed spares his reflection another glance. “As I’ll ever be,” he says, any prior resignation forgotten altogether, and, laughing, Ling pulls him to his feet.

**ii.**

The New Year’s celebrations stretch long into the evening, culminating into the explosion of colorful fireworks across the dark night sky, far more vivid than any in Amestris. At some point, Ed is holding three firecrackers that he doesn’t know the origin of and laughing like a madman as he sets them off.

Earlier, during the feast, no less than four teeming dishes—consisting in part of long noodles that Ed eats incorrectly and gets a gentle kick to the shin from Ling for doing so—are served to the emperor alone. Distance seems to have made Al forget what Ed is like. He keeps looking over with disgust at how much they can put away. Ed gets to talk with him at length, though, settling into their bickering like no time has passed whatsoever. They refrain from their outright brawls due to the company, but barbs and knowledge are exchanged in equal measure, and the food that ends up on Al’s cheek is in _no way_ related to how hard Ed keeps jabbing chopsticks forward for emphasis, all right?

And then there’s the giving and receiving of red envelopes (Ed even gets a couple and trips over himself in his haste to bow under Lan Fan’s pointed look). And the conversations over and after dinner, well-meaning Xingese guests asking in weak Amestrian about Ed’s travels and alchemy and Amestrian politics, which he knows as little about these days as most of them. And the smell of burnt bamboo in the air as the firecrackers go off. Fun, but exhausting.

Suffice to say, then, Ed is tired even when he awakens. Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d only had time to tug his hair free from the style Ling had done it up in, not bothering to pull it up again. A habit he’d picked up in his less restful days and never figured out how to drop.

When he does wake, though, it’s to the glow of the dawn against heavy enough eyelids that he has to shake himself before he comes to full consciousness.

The gold walls come into focus, made even more luminescent by the light creeping in through the thin curtains. So he’s in one of the emperor’s personal rooms. Unsurprising, given how few of Ed’s things are in his guest quarters and how this section of the palace has a far higher number of guards than anywhere else, but it still makes him wince as he brings himself to sit up. (Although Ling is always happy to remind anyone of far more significant scandals than a visiting former Amestrian state alchemist curled up, fully clothed, in the emperor’s bed.)

“Oh, you’re awake,” pipes up a voice beside him.

Ed’s attention shifts to Ling, who’s half-sitting up too, arms planted on either side of his torso. He’s still in his ceremonial robes, but the collar has come undone to bare the top of his chest, and the morning light paints him in hues of brilliant amber. The room behind him goes a little fuzzy when Ed looks toward him.

It takes him a moment to realize Ling is speaking again: “Good—you were laying on my sleeve, and I was considering cutting the end off so I could get up. Hmm, I don’t think I can use sharp objects yet, so that might have been ill-advised anyway.”

“Your sleeve,” says Ed flatly, still somewhat distracted.

“Remind me sometime to tell you about gay Xingese history.” With a slight wince, Ling pulls himself to a full sitting position, legs folded beneath him. “By the way, can I do your hair again?”

Ed, although blinking in surprise, is nodding before he knows it. Even as he turns, he asks, “Another formal Xingese style?”

“No—something Amestrian, actually.” Ling settles back with his legs sprawled out beside him and parts Ed’s loose hair into two sections, trading hair back and forth across his shoulders. He balks, though, when his fingers catch on a string of knots. “How did it get even _more_ tangled?!”

“Probably should have put it up before I went to sleep,” says Ed, not possessing enough of a sense of shame to be sheepish about it. He eyes Ling’s neat bob over his shoulder.

Ling shakes his head just before Ed looks back. “Here, you comb it out,” he says, handing over the ox horn comb. “I’ll wait.”

“Ugh.” But Ed obliges, haphazardly dragging the prongs of the comb through the numerous knotted sections of his hair. He evens out both sections with only a few loosened strands left behind in the comb. There’s no other hair stuck in it—unfair that Ling’s hair is as thick as it is and doesn’t come out in combs (or at least he cleans the comb enough that Ed would never know), but Ed’s, which shares its color and thickness alike with straw, sheds like a cat—but he plucks his out anyway. “Happy now?” he asks as he hands the comb back.

“Sure. You missed one, though.” With a laugh, Ling combs out the final visible—if not to Ed—tangle, sitting right beneath his ear. Ed winces at the brief flicker of pain. “Sorry, sorry,” says Ling, not sounding so. “That should be the last one, though.”

He tweaks Ed’s hair once more, pushing one section aside, before beginning to neatly braid it. His movements are easier to track this time—after he finishes weaving strands together high up alongside Ed’s scalp, he seems to follow the pattern of a standard braid, twisting together pieces of hair with the occasional pauses to rest and stretch his hands.

Ed is still tired enough that he sits stiffer than he had the previous night, if hunched forward enough that Ling keeps nudging him upright. He shuts his eyes once and blinks to find one section braided and smoothed along his shoulder. Ling is halfway down the other section and humming under his breath.

“What is that?”

Ling cuts off. “What is what?” he asks, fingers stuttering for an instant before continuing along their path.

“The song you’re humming.”

“Eh—” Ling pauses again to think “—something I heard a street performer playing the other day, I think. A farewell song, maybe?”

“I’m not going anywhere yet,” says Ed, rubbing blearily at one eye (on the side that’s already braided). The usual morning stiffness in his limbs is starting to kick in, so he’s clinging to sleepiness as long as he can.

“No, you aren’t,” agrees Ling. “But my brain doesn’t seem to care.”

He finishes braiding, the second process seeming to go by much quicker than the first, and sweeps the other braid onto Ed’s shoulder. Both, Ed notices, are tied off with ribbons of red silk as bright as yesterday’s (and this morning’s) robes.

“I still can’t wear black or white, can I.”

Ling outright cackles. “Welcome to Xing,” he says, spreading his arms with a _whoosh_ of the fabric. “Besides, weren’t you super insistent upon wearing your red cloak everywhere at fifteen? I would think this would feel nostalgic.”

“Hey, I made that myself! It was badass and cool! This is just, I don’t know, soft.” Ed tugs, halfhearted, at the collar of his sleep-rumpled robes.

“It was cool, sure. Not _that_ badass, though.” Ling ignores Ed’s swear-laden sputters of protest to add, “Also, we’ll miss out on dumplings for breakfast if we don’t go right about now. Enough worrying about your hair.”

“You’re the one who’s worrying,” blusters Ed, but the promise of dumplings gets him up and running soon enough.

(He only realizes after sitting through breakfast with Lan Fan’s eyes upon him far longer than usual that with these braids, he looks an uncomfortable amount like a twelve-year-old Mei Chang. He takes a moment to grimace before moving on nonetheless. They’re kind of cute, he has to admit, though he would die before confessing that outside of his head.)

**iii.**

The room is dark, oil lamp dimmed several minutes ago to leave the moon as the only source of light for miles. A balmy breeze blows through the cracked window to stir the curtains. It’s warm but not unbearable; just another summer in Resembool.

As much as Ed considers “home” to be a self-made construct, metaphorical and ever-changing (hell, he’d burnt his childhood house to the ground), it goes without saying that the Rockbell home has always been home to him, too. And if Granny Pinako insists on him and Ling taking the guest room for the night despite their visits being complete surprises to her, Winry, and themselves, he won’t say _no_.

Now, though, he almost regrets it when the pain in his arm picks up again as he’s reaching up to braid his hair. The ache pulses from his fingertips to his bicep, and he hisses through his teeth when it reaches a fever pitch—it was waning and waxing all week, but it’s much stronger now.

Ling glances over with a start when Ed’s hand falls. “Everything all right?”

Ed’s first response is a wince. “Can you—” he starts, and then he stops, embarrassment coiling up in his chest. Ling watches him in attentive silence. It isn’t like he’s going to bother the Rockbells this late, and he’ll be uncomfortable for days if he forces himself to put up his hair himself in this much pain, so he huffs out, “Can you braid my hair for me?”

Blinking, Ling tips his head back. “You usually insist on doing it,” he notes—not a disagreement, only surprised.

“I’m sorry,” says Ed, mouth twisting. It’s less an apology to Ling and more an apology to himself and the stupid pride flaring up within him. “It’s just—my arm—”

“It hurts?” Ling guesses, and though Ed cuts his gaze away, that’s enough of an answer.

It shouldn’t, in all honesty. Ed _has_ his original arm back, but still, sometimes, the phantom pain he’d grown so used to in those few years returns, its only constant trait its unpredictability. Sometimes it’s hand-in-hand with the remaining pain in his missing leg, but more often than not, it comes alone. Or at least starts out that way.

Maybe it’s because of the scarring remaining across his shoulder. Maybe it’s pure habit, something he’d gotten too familiar with to be released. Maybe it’s because of the overuse of his arms over the years; his other arm isn’t without its occasional aches and groans.

Maybe it’s a final curse from a god he still doesn’t believe in. Equivalent exchange isn’t always a one-size-fits-all doctrine, as Ed knows well; sometimes you’re blessed with more than you give up, but sometimes you have to give up more than you get.

Whatever the case, Ed bears the pain now, and he does so with a clenched jaw. His limp arm hangs at his side.

But Ling straightens up, clutching his side, and Ed’s eyes narrow.

“If you hurt too much, he should either,” he says with a firm glare he’s never given himself, always pushing along his path regardless of if he spent the previous night curled up with his pained gasps punctuating the silence and his automail leg pressed to his chest as though that would somehow ease the pain. “I could just leave it down.”

“You think I’m going through that again?” says Ling with a snort, like he hasn’t done so before. He rubs his stomach—the spot where the scar of the Promised Day, although hidden by his ratty tank top now, remains—and tilts his head, cracking a kink out of his neck. “No, it’s fine. It’s just right here.”

Ed almost wants to protest more, innate sense of defiance surging up despite the situational lack of necessity. Another wave of pain rushes through his arm, though, and he lets it drop with his lip between his teeth.

Ling takes that as an opportunity to get to work. His hands are cautious and slowed by his own drowsiness, but for the most part, the braid he puts together, twining strands of Ed’s hair together, is less messy than most of those Ed composes. It’s perfunctory in the end; nothing more, nothing less, aside from the one who did it. Ed runs the fingers of his other hand down he bumps of it nonetheless.

He lets it sprawl out beside him as he shuts his eyes and lies back down without another word, brows pushed together at the aching of his joints. It won’t leave tonight—the best he can do is hope that it lessens in the morning, though given that’s the time his discomfort tends to be highest, his hopes aren’t high, and he isn’t one for prayers.

So he lets it lie there as he stretches out as best he can. His grimace only lets up when Ling brushes back his tousled bangs to peck his forehead before lying down with a _whump_.

After a moment, Ed’s eyes flicker back open. His vision has adjusted to the darkness by now, but he still has to squint through his weariness to make out the moonlight glinting off Ling’s bronze skin, the way he’s positioned to avoid putting his weight on his left side (though he’ll likely end up on it at some point or another, with how restless they both are in sleep). Ling’s hair is already up in a high ponytail, stuck in place with a silver pin, so Ed can’t return the favor. His mouth twitches down.

 _Give ten, get eleven_. Ed often seems to fall short of applying that philosophy to himself.

He sighs, making Ling shift toward him, added warmth bordering on uncomfortable but not enough to be outright unpleasant. Ed is taller now but still short enough that Ling curls around him without issue. The night is silent and calm—a once-rare moment of respite turned almost trite.

Ed’s eyes stay lidded but open. Once Ling’s eyes have fallen all the way shut and his breathing has evened out, gentle snores trailing from his parted mouth, Ed mutters, “Thank you.”

Ling’s snicker is as immediate as it is aggravating. “You’re welcome,” he says, still looking dead to the world, and Ed scowls but lets himself be lured into sleep.

**iii+i.**

There are dozens of times in between and after these. By sheer virtue of their busy, long-haired lives plagued by the principle of equivalent exchange, it happens more often than not. Half-assed braids when either of them is too tired or too in pain to wrangle his own hair. More dramatic overhauls to outdo each other. Bolder styles as the people of Xing relax into their emperor’s reforms and eccentricities. Once he manages to walk around a Cretan city with marital braids in both his and Ed’s hair (a red-faced Lan Fan has the honor of explaining it over Ling’s grin. Ed, though embarrassed, doesn’t mind. Still, he looks the other way when Lan Fan detaches her automail hand and flings it at Ling, who swiftly dodges, as everyone had known he would).

But out of all of the braids and ponytails and buns and complex styles without names Ed understands that fill the space between, one is of particular significance:

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” says Ed as he kneels behind Ling, hands hovering behind Ling’s head and several beads of sweat making their way down his cheeks. His own hair is arranged into a semi-formal Amestrian braid (of course courtesy of Ling) along his shoulder.

“It’s tradition,” insists Ling.

“I’m ninety-percent sure you’re lying about that.” Without being able to see Ling’s face, there’s no way for Ed to be sure, but he does hear the bitten-off snort. He prods Ling behind the ear. “Can’t you get someone who knows what they’re doing to style this for you? Or do it yourself?”

“That would defeat the point. It doesn’t matter how it _looks_ , all that matters is the sentiment behind it.”

If anything, this is more daunting. Ed’s mind has always worked in technicalities. As a teenager, he’d been kindhearted beneath the temper and swagger, but he’d only truly understood people in the sense of their physical ingredients ( _thirty-five liters of water, twenty kilograms of carbon, four liters of ammonia, one-point-five kilograms of lime,_ and so on and so forth, until the end of the list stored in the back of his thoughts ). He likes to think age and experience have improved things, but, well. _Once an alchemist, always an alchemist_.

“You’ll at least tell me if I fuck up spectacularly, yeah?”

Ling shrugs. Unhelpful. Ed knees him in the small of the back with his flesh leg—he’s bony enough that it could hurt as much as the other leg if he applied himself, but he doesn’t.

“Ow,” says Ling, flat as the horizon. “All right, all right, sure. You’ll do fine, though.” He reaches back to pat Ed’s leg. “Now get to work, will you? We don’t have all day.”

Ed narrows his eyes. He knows this, and he’s not one for second-guessing, so he’ll go in with enough pride to buoy him through. He takes a breath—if not a deep one—and extends his hands.

Ling’s hair is, of course, nicer than his, probably because he takes at least a modicum of care of it. Since he hasn’t gotten any significant cuts since he was twenty, it’s long, too, stretching past his waist, which is more evident when it’s unbound like this. Dark, sleek, and the slightest bit wavy. Ed runs his fingers through it, seeking tangles but finding none. He shoots his frequent rat’s nest a remorseful look but sits back with a considering frown.

After rifling through the opportunities presented, Ed decides to rely on instinct rather than any sort of careful strategy, as is the Elric way of doing things encoded in their DNA. He employs a combination of Xingese hairstyling techniques, what he recalls of his mother’s traditional hairstyles from photographs and hazy childhood memories, and some plain improvisation (all right, bullshitting) to put together something that, at least in his eyes, doesn’t look horrible.

He huffs an exhale out of his nose like a weary dragon and hands Ling the jade-studded mirror. “Done. Finally. You have too much hair, you know that?”

Ling grins crookedly in the mirror. “I try,” he says, which makes not a mite of sense in context but has Ed snorting nonetheless. Then he looks back down, mouth parting the slightest bit as he runs his fingers along the lopsided knots pretending to be braids. “…For how many years you did your own hair, you’re really bad at it.”

“ _Hey,_ fuck off!” Aggravated heat shoots to Ed’s cheeks. “You said no comments. And that it didn’t matter how it looked.”

“I was joking! Sorry.” Ling snickers behind his hand as he shakes his head, guilty but amused. “It doesn’t matter,” he adds, “but it _does_ look lovely.” At Ed’s suspicious glare, he raises a hand. “I’m serious this time, I swear! It shows your creativity and resourcefulness well—though this is a little over the top.” He gestures at the array of pins and accessories decorating his head and the loose strands of hair upon his robes and neck.

Forcing a scowl, Ed tugs a couple of the pins out, careful not to upset the rest of the hairstyle. “Happy now?”

“That’s a little less gaudy,” says Ling, like that is something that has ever mattered to him. He spares his reflection another askance look. A smile, softer and more contemplative, curves across his face. “Hardly a traditional style for a Xingese wedding—” he pushes the bun sitting at the back of his skull more toward the center “—but there’s nothing traditional about this to begin with.”

He rises, somewhat slouched, no longer the upright pillar of an emperor but a simple man, smiling as the daylight glints off his styled hair and the silver ring hanging from a chain around his neck. Watching him, Ed feels, for a moment, the heaviness in his body making way for a fuzzy lightness.

Then Ling extends his hand. “Shall we?” he says, an offer to which he already knows the response, and Ed can’t intertwine their fingers fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> the "cut sleeve" comment is a reference to [the story of emperor ai and dong xian](http://www.fumble.org.uk/homosexuality-ancient-china/) and the use of "[the passion of the] cut sleeve" as a euphemism. other real chinese practices referenced throughout (especially wrt hair) are purposefully somewhat muddled across time periods/ethnic groups given fma's canon status as an alternate reality with a liberal relationship with historical accuracy.
> 
> anyway, thanks so much for reading! if you have time to spare, comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/withlittlequill) | [tumblr](http://infernallegaycy.tumblr.com)


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